First of all, I'd like to preface this review by saying I am usually pretty lenient when it comes to accepting small grammatical errors like ending sentences with prepositional phrases or accepting the occasional “their/there/they’re” confusion in text messages. However, I think the fact that this movie is purposely misspelled speaks volumes about the movie I’m about to describe. Not only was it not integral to any sort of “plot device” but I’m pretty sure Stephen King thought he was being really fucking clever when he did it. I can just imagine his smug Mongoloid face smirking from above his stupid fucking clunky '80s typewriter. Then again, I’m probably just butthurt because I didn’t realize it was misspelled until someone in the movie mentioned it.
Pet Sematary has a pretty simple plot to understand- seemingly perfect family moves into a new country home near a dangerous highway in which trucks haul-ass down. Within the first 5 minutes of moving, their obnoxious semi-psychic, but not smart enough to listen to her mother, daughter injures herself on a tire swing and their 4 year old toddler almost walks into a street and gets hit by a truck. The son is saved by a world weary old man who cryptically mentions the pet sematary. Foreshadowing with a capital F.
However, what seems to be more of an impending doom is the awkward family dynamics. Although an attractive pair, the mom, played by Star Trek NextGen actress Denise Crosby, is totallllllly a closet-case while the dad, played by Dale Midkiff, has the dead stare that only someone with a violent porn career or a Canadian can have. There are so many times where Dale Midkiff struggles in terror only to look as if he is preparing to blow a load.
The last member of this family is the cat. Pretty much from the get-go everyone anticipates this cat to be hit by a truck and to be killed. However, it waits to do this when mom and the kids are away, probably visiting with mom’s “friend” Pat. The cat dies. The dad buries it in the pet sematary. It comes back to life. It is evil.
Also, there is some weird subplot with dad not being able to save some
dude who had half of his brain oozing out and he comes back as a
friendly zombie ghost to give advice but I wasn’t paying that much
attention. There is also more sub-subplot about mom killing her
sister/first girlfriend, who had some crippling spine disease that made
her character look like a man in drag, dressed up as some Marnie Weber
character. Also, the cat flings a dead rat into porndad’s tub while he’s
taking a bath…hilarity ensues. So FINALLY, the son gets hit by a car. He gets buried. He comes back to life. He’s evil. HE STABS THE SHIT OUT OF SOMEONE’S ANKLE. POSSIBLY THE MOST TERRIFYING MOMENT IN ALL OF HORROR HISTORY. He kills the mom. Dad buries her. She comes back to life. She’s evil. She kills the dad. See the ingenious web that Stephen King has spun?
However, despite the schlock, Pet Sematary is still a scary movie and ended up giving me the following nightmare:
I dreamt I was walking around the Grand Library in Glendale and outside their gallery space was a tv talk show set up like Space Ghost Coast to Coast with two demons that looked like they were from Buffy displayed in those monitor-chairs. The dialogue was like “Oh you killll me Beazebub”. “AHHAHA, that’s what your mother and the 40 million souls I’ve collected said”. Then I walked into the gallery space and it was a 3-D video installation of these horrifying shadows that would creep and surround you and it felt like I was trapped in hell. I remember blinking and trying to wake up from within the dream and when I finally did I was dropped off in a family reunion. This reunion was my mother’s Texan family and it ended on a high note when I ran into '90s boy next door, Breckin Myer and we tried to figure out how related we were so we could make out.
THE END...Dirty Pillows.
Yeah, well, the point of the oh-so-fucking-clever misspelling from smug Stephen King with his rickety old typewriter is this: the pet CEMETERY was, as clearly stated in both the film and the book, set up by the local children as a final resting place for their demised felines, crushed parakeets, cancer-riddled doggies, what-have-you. So yes, a rather arcane literary device though it is, nonetheless it is not completely and moronically irrelevant: the sign was written by a child who, being trapped in a time before there were any nifty electronic gadgets with an installed "Spell Check" within reach, had unfortunately misspelled the word "cemetery". Who knows, maybe the CHILD was a mongoloid...
ReplyDeleteThe point is that any reviewer's scathing, wry, frustrated rants should never get in the way of actual facts: ole' mongoloid-face had a purpose for the title, and it EVEN figures into the plot!
If you still have doubts, you can always text someone and see what their take is. Just make sure to check for grammatical errors before you hit "send".
I have doubts, and I think your rants are too long and winded. Get a life, Harmon...Yours, Vivian H.
ReplyDeletehttp://bln.gs/b/255gx0
ReplyDeleteThis entire blog is one long, winded rant! And with all seriousness I applaud you! I mean it... Express away! That's what blogs are for.
ReplyDeleteBut, that being said, let's face it: you're not exactly writing about gardening tips here. CINEMUSHKA really gives it, hard, with spiked steel dildos and no lube. Sometimes some of us more sensitive film-geek types feel the need to say "Ow!" now and again (long winded though our rants may be).
I apologize, Dirty Pillows: you hit a nerve, so I reacted, with far more anger than I ever intended -- You elicited a guttural rebuttal from an otherwise meek reader, the true signs of a good blogger. Kudos!
As for you, Viv... No wonder I was over at the Findlay house all the time getting drunk with Walter. We BOTH need to lighten up a bit.
We could try Marriage Counseling. Or EST.